Disk drive head suspensions are well known and disclosed, for example, in the Danielson et al. U.S. Pat. No. 7,076,859. Briefly, suspensions of this type include a relatively thin stainless steel load beam having a base or mounting region, a rigid beam region, and a spring or radius region extending between the mounting and beam regions. A baseplate is sometimes attached to the mounting region. The spring region is commonly radius formed by rolling the stainless steel around a mandrel so the beam region is offset from and extends at an angle with respect to the mounting region. This radius form in spring region provides a spring force known as the gram load when the suspension is in operation in a disk drive. Unfortunately, with increasing miniaturization of head suspensions and the fabrication of the suspensions from increasingly thinner stainless steel with lower spring rates, it becomes increasingly difficult to accurately radius form and gram load the spring region during the suspension manufacturing process. For similar reasons, these thinner springs are more susceptible to load loss during repeated load/unload cycles when operated in a disk drive. This load loss contributes to gram load instability.
There is, therefore, a continuing need for improved head suspensions and components. In particular, there is a need for suspensions and components fabricated from thin spring material that can be accurately gram loaded. The gram load should be stable over time during operation of the suspensions in disk drives. To be commercially viable, the suspensions should be capable of being efficiently manufactured.